MURINA: Trouble in Paradise

Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović made a splash at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival with Murina, winning the prestigious Camera d’Or for Best First Feature. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Murina combines the sinister tension of noir with the emotional agony of coming of age to tell the story of one young woman’s attempts to escape the future laid out for her; the result is a powerful film, perfect for summer, that should not be missed.

Blister in the Sun

Seventeen-year-old Julija (Gracija Filipović) lives on a remote, rocky island off Croatia’s Adriatic coast with her domineering father, Ante (Leon Lucev), and her beautiful but passive mother, Nela (Danica Curcic). A talented diver who begrudgingly assists her father in hunting for moray eels, or murina⁠—an animal that will bite its own flesh in order to break free from restraints⁠—Julija dreams of leaving this aesthetically pleasing but emotionally unsatisfying life behind to move to the big city and perhaps attend college. She sees young people her age partying on a nearby yacht and longs for just a taste of that kind of freedom, but has no idea how to obtain it.

That all changes with the arrival of Javier (Cliff Curtis), an old family friend and former business associate of Ante (not to mention, a former lover of Nela). Ante is attempting to broker a potentially life-changing deal in which they would sell their land to Javier for the construction of a luxury resort. A charismatic and wealthy globe-trotting businessman, Javier knows he holds all of the power in the situation and thus flirts heavily with Nela and even Julija during his visit, knowing that Ante will not object to anything that might help close the deal. But in Julija’s eyes, tinted as they are by youthful naivety, Javier’s actions signify something entirely different: a way out from under Ante’s heavy thumb for both herself and Nela.

Naturally, it gradually becomes clear⁠—albeit much sooner for the audience than it does for Julija⁠—that our heroine is misreading what’s going on between Ante, Nela, and Javier, as teenagers often do before they have a proper sense of the complex and often cruel ways in which adults negotiate with and manipulate each other to get what they want. While Julija has keen intuition⁠—she knows that there is more going on than meets the eye⁠—she allows her own hopes and dreams to cloud her perception. She thinks Javier is still in love with Nela, and would willingly take her and Julija away from their island prison. And she assumes Nela would gladly go along; after all, how could she possibly be happy living the life she does, constantly at the beck and call of Ante, worried about setting off his fiery temper?

Yet Nela has accepted her lot in life as a woman in a society dominated by male chauvinism and is much more likely to blame Julija for pushing her father too far than she is to blame Ante for his cruel behavior. The realization of this makes Julija just as resentful of her mother as she is of her father; when Nela attempts to stop the escape that Julija is trying to engineer for them both, Julija accuses Nela of trying to ruin her life the same way she ruined her own so many years ago. And despite Nela’s denials, it is clear that she harbors some resentment of her own towards her daughter for attempting to seize a brighter future.

Cruel Summer

When Nela and Julija go diving with Javier, Nela is unable to complete the dive, rising to the surface quickly while Julija continues to show off underwater for their guest. When the two of them surface to Javier’s glowing praise of Julija’s bravery and skill, Nela is less proud of her daughter than jealous of her. Sulking in a corner of the boat, she sees that Julija’s youthful beauty and athletic talents represent a pathway to opportunities that she never dreamed of for herself, content as she was to coast on her reputation as the island beauty queen. Meanwhile, Ante sees his daughter’s boldness and strength as something to be tempered and molded to his own purposes; when Julija takes a step too far into the spotlight, he literally locks her out of sight as punishment.

In observing the intense push and pull between this quartet of characters, their behavior growing increasingly ugly amidst the undeniable beauty of the island, Murina calls to mind Jacques Deray’s masterful depiction of sundrenched sex and violence, La Piscine. Both films take place over a short span of summertime, chronicling the emotional upheaval that occurs when one is distracted from the present by both the past and the future; both show us that even in the bright, dazzling light of the sun, one is not free from inner darkness. And, both films somehow render white one-piece bathing suits far more appealing than they have any right to be.

All four lead performances in Murina deserve praise for the complicated array of emotions their characters elicit from the audience, but the standout is rising star Filipović, who manages to capture that delicate, awkward balance of being on the verge of adulthood while still being very much a child, as well as that feeling of knowing more than others think you do but still not knowing very much at all. A professional swimmer and tap dancer in addition to being a marvelously talented actress, Filipović’s natural athleticism is key to the role, for it is Julija’s abilities in the water that enable her to break free from the binds that seek to tie her to a specific fate.

Murina boasts beautiful location cinematography by Hélène Louvart (The Lost Daughter, Never Rarely Sometimes Always); ironically, while the film turns a critical eye on the booming Croatian tourism industry, watching it will probably make you want to visit the country’s crystal-clear waters and sapphire-blue skies as soon as possible. From the light glinting off of slick wet bathing suits to the crunch of toast eaten with freshly caught sea urchins, to the sound of waves crashing against the rocky coast, the film is altogether a feast for the senses. It should be welcomed with open arms into the canon of what Isabel Sandoval has dubbed sensual cinema, films in which “desire, in effect, becomes a looming, ominous presence…suffusing each intoxicating frame and sound cue, ultimately possessing us. The more exquisitely and grandly this desire is courted and then thwarted, the more transcendent the film appears.” It’s hard to imagine a more perfect description of how I felt watching Murina.

Conclusion

By the end of the film, Julija realizes that she is the only one⁠—not Ante, not Javier, not the seductive boys her age splashing on the nearby beach⁠—who can decide what her future holds. And while we’re not entirely sure what that is (and neither is she), one is nonetheless left with a feeling of hope. That feeling makes Murina one of the most satisfying coming-of-age films in recent memory.

What do you think? What are some of your favorite coming-of-age movies? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Murina opens on July 8, 2022, at Metrograph in New York. You can find additional release dates here.

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